mitt romney had to spend two weeks dealing with this issue. while he had a very good debate showing and that seems to have an impact in the polls initially here, may be he will be further ahead now had he actually spent those two weeks doing what he intended to do rather than playing defense. i do know that focus groups, both romney campaign ran and the obama campaign ran showed these remarks really alienated independent voters and even weak republicans. which indicates to me that this comes up again in the debate and advertising, it will remind people. they forgot about it or responding to the debate. host: let's go to phone calls. barb, democratic caller you're on the air. caller: i would like to say that romneyexpressed his real feeling about the 47%. it cannot be ignored. also understand that he signed grover norquist pledge. if he did that, he cannot represent 100% of the population because if you say that you're going to ignore the situation that the country is in, you cannot say that you unequivocally ignore taxes and to get income to s